Developing participatory workshop skills with the Partisan Social Club

Description of impact

During the exhibition ‘On Being Together; memberships, collectives and unions’ (2018), The Partisan Social Club brought together residents of Lambeth in London and university students, to participate as members of the Club. Over the period of the project, 13th September - 24th November, 2018, members met for a series of workshops that included slogan writing, creating slogan sculptures, musicalising your slogan, subverting the pop song, and workshop design (Frank Wasseur). While workshops were first led by the project team (Andy Hewitt, Mel Jordan and Sean Griffiths), subsequent workshops throughout the project were led by club members, who had been encouraged and trained to lead the group in workshops they designed and managed. In this way participants became teachers in a space for group learning.

During the project the group made new artworks dedicated to the concept of ‘membership’, sited in the public outdoor and indoor spaces of Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall. The ‘members’ participated in the realisation of social sculptures, and the design, build and the programming of the Club's activities foucsed on collectives, unions, groups and clubs. The project developed new modes of participation that now inform Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall’s ways of working with publics. These went beyond conventional models of audience development and outreach through the development of a self-forming group of members who created programming for the space on their own terms.

Stakeholders/Beneficiaries

Community Members:
The members of The Partisan Social Club were: Lewis Allum, Xenia Busalova, Zhishan Chen, Chris Daubney, Sadie Edginton, Riccardo Fregoni, Chang Gao, Alison Gill, Sean Griffiths, Bekki Herbert, Felicity Holmes, Hanxuan Jiang, Mel Jordan, Khaver Idrees, Louise King, Tiantian Liu, Liz Murray, Annabelle Nguyen, Joanna Osieglewska, Tina Rousou, Iza Sasaran, Alexia Soteriou, Sven Storm, Allan Struthers, Yukako Tanaka, Toby Tobias, Ewelina Trejta, Simon Tyszko, Kai Wang, Wei Zhou and Timothy Cape.

Arts Institutions and Organisations:
Beaconsfield Gallery (Directors Naomi Siderfin and David Crawforth)
Arts Council England

Schools and Universities:
University of Northampton
Royal College of Art
Westminster University

How have research outputs led to this impact?

The Partisan Social Club is a project led by Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan. Together with architect Sean Griffiths they developed the exhibition ‘On being together; memberships, collectives and unions’ at the Arts Council funded Beaconsfield Gallery in London. The practice-led research investigated the potential of working collectively via workshops, the creation of socialsculptures and other programming and artworks in the gallery and its immediate vicinity. The project attempted new forms of co-authorship and encouraged new relationships amongst participants and temporary ownership of the gallery space.It looked to establish of a group of people interested in sharing and working through ideas on art and its social potential.

Impact status	Planning
Impact date	13 Sept 2018
Category of impact	Cultural impacts, Social impacts, 17: Partnerships for Goals (UN SDG), 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities (UN SDG), 04: Quality Education (UN SDG)
Impact level	Early stage Impact